FAY, Peter Ward 1924-2004

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born December 3, 1924, in Paris, France; died January 18, 2004, in Sierra Madre, CA. Historian, educator, and author. Fay was a professor emeritus at the California Institute of Technology and an authority on Indian and Chinese history. Before entering college, Fay served in Italy during World War II as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army field artillery. After the war, he received his B.A. from Harvard University in 1947, followed by a second bachelor's degree from Balliol College, Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, in 1949. Fay then returned to Massachusetts, where he completed his Harvard Ph.D. in 1954 and taught history at Williams College from 1951 to 1955. He moved on to Caltech in 1955 as an assistant professor, rising to full professor in 1970 and retiring in 1997; while at Caltech, he also served on the board of trustees of the Polytechnic School and was on the board of directors of the Pacific Historical Review. It was while teaching as a visiting professor at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, India, from 1964 to 1966 that Fay became interested in that country's history and culture, as well as the history of China. He later wrote two books about these countries: The Opium War: 1840-1842 (1975) and The Forgotten Army: India's Armed Struggle for Independence, 1942-1945 (1993). A highly respected educator, Fay received the Associated Students of Caltech award for excellence in teaching in 1979 and 1990.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

BOOKS

Directory of American Scholars, 10th edition, Gale (Detroit, MI), 2001.

PERIODICALS

Chronicle of Higher Education, February 6, 2004, p. A35.

ONLINE

Caltech Media Relations,http://pr.caltech.edu/media/ (January 21, 2004), "Caltech History Professor Peter W. Fay Dies."